About 2 years ago I graduated from High School and transfered to a college where I stopped playing soccer( I had played for 3 years in HS), However recently I have transfered to a different school where I plan to play soccer in the fall, but I'm having a hard time getting to the level of soccer I need to be at in order to be part of the team.

This what I've been doing all summer: Back in June I contacted my old High School coach, he invited me to come practice with a local competitive college club team. Practice was twice a week for two hours. As I began getting back into shape I joined a college level indoor team that plays once a week.

Recently the team with which I plan to play with in the fall has begun practicing twice a week as well. Since I've gotten in good shape I've also begun adding a morning training session in which I juggle and practice dribbling for about an hour.

I usually take Saturdays and Sundays off. As you can see I focus a lot on ball touching skills since thats the area I lack the most in. I play fullback/outside defender and my shooting skills are pretty decent so I usually don't practice them as often. My strengths are speed and endurance. My main problem now is as follows, regardless of all the practice I'm still having trouble making the correct passes and playing well in a team environment, sometimes I make rash decisions and there are other times when I become completely unfocused mentally. Some days are good and some are downright horrible. I realize some of this may be due to the lack of my playing formal soccer at an extensive level. I'm very worried because the league my team will be competing in the fall has very strong teams, one of which was the 2006 NIRSA (National Intercollegiate Recreational Sports Association) National Camp What do I do about these consistency issues? I have about 3 weeks left before the season beings, when can I expect to begin seeing results from practicing?

It looks pretty good, although I have a few possible suggestions. Number one, I think you would benefit from some wall drills. Just add it for about 15-30 minutes to your normal training. Make sure to use both feet and sides of your body. You should notice improvements pretty quickly from this. Also, if you are an adept juggler (250+ with mainly feet), you probably don't need to work on it more than 15 minutes a day. If you aren't so great, you can practice it more. When I started practicing on my own, all I did was juggling and my control and touch improved quickly. However, after I got better and more consistent, I juggled for shorter lengths of time and I started doing other drills.

As to your problem with decision making during a game, there's no easy way to learn that. Plain and simple. The most common play a defender would make after getting the ball is a quick pass to your winger, but if you see your forward making a run, then play it longer. If you are under pressure, don't hesitate to clear it. That's a million times better than allowing the opposition a chance on goal. One thing that will help you is learning to dribble with your head up. It sounds simple, but it's an element that can make you a very dangerous player. If you always have your head up, you can see everything that's going on and select the best passing option easier. To become aware of how professional players act in certain situations, watch lots of their games. You can learn a lot from experienced players such as them. Make sure that you're really paying attention to the passes they make, and ask yourself why they may have done that, or think if they should have made a different pass. Don't just watch for leisure, watch to gain tactical knowledge.

Your consistency issues will clear up after weeks of practice. Simply don't worry about it because it's hard to speed up the process other than giving 100% in training. Take a look at what expert (the forum administrator) wrote on practice and its link to consistency. Also look at our maximizing your performance guide for tons of tips and helpful information to be on key at every game. Just remember than no player on the planet plays their best at every single game. Everyone's bound to be off key every once in a while. As to your question about when you'll see results from practice, I would say after 5-10 hours of work (per skill), you'll see large, noticeable improvements. However, this is dependent on many variables such as the quality of your practice and how good/bad your skill and technique are.

I'm not suprised soccer4life gave you a bunch of really good feedback... such a dedicated member...

Also, I don't really understand your routine on some areas... like why do you only do juggling and dribbling? Shouldn't you include shooting (sort of), passing, moves and tricks, heading, free-kicks... all that stuff - even if your pretty good at them, you can always be better?

"We win and we lose, it's just the way it is."Skill - Once you have it, you love it!

Passing is covered extensively during practices as well as moves and tricks. I did add wall drills to my everyday routine. I practice my free kicks about once a week with a buddy of mine but once I get closer to the beginning of the season I'll be doing them more and more since I'm probably going to be the one taking them on our team. The reason I'm focusing a lot on dribbling and juggling is because my ball control and touch seems to have deteriorated a lot since I stopped playing. If I'm going to be competitive this fall these things need to improve considerably.